How to do it: Hybrids and green corridors

In fifty years, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas. In the 2011 CSR and Sustainability Report, the Volvo Group presents its strategy for the route towards the transport society of tomorrow, where the challenges will be energy efficiency, safety and high productivity.

Without sustainable transport solutions, our cities will not be able to cope with the future demands on productivity, economic growth, safety and the environment. “In order to meet the global trends that we are seeing now with regards, for example, to urbanisation, lifestyles and population increases, we need to restructure the transport system so as to make it more sustainable”, says Malin Ripa, who is in charge of CSR and sustainability issues within the Volvo Group. “As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of transport and infrastructure solutions, we have a responsibility to accept the challenges of the future and we are in a unique position to do so thanks to the core values, such as safety and care for the environment, that we have had for eighty years”, she states. The greatest challenges for transport operations in a future society are those of energy efficiency, safety and the maintaining of high productivity. In the Volvo Group CSR and Sustainability Report for 2011, the Group presents its vision of becoming world leader in sustainable transport solutions and reports some of the products and services that the Volvo Group has developed so far or will continue to develop in order to achieve the vision of the future.Examples: • Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). An efficient public transport system that combines high-capacity buses with lanes set aside for bus traffic. The system has been developed by Volvo Buses and is primarily in use in cities in Latin America.

• Volvo’s in-house developed hybrid bus reduces fuel consumption by up to 37 per cent and is in operation in a number of locations, including London. During 2011 the city of Curitiba in Brazil ordered 60 new hybrid buses.

• Intelligent Transport System (ITS) is a generic name for technologies that enable traffic information systems, vehicles and infrastructures to communicate with each other in a way that results in safer and more efficient transport operations.

• Green corridors for efficient transport operations increase safety and efficiency by means of transport routes that have been specially adapted for heavy vehicular traffic.

“Our many years of working on innovative products and our core values means that we have the competence and the resources to be world leading. If anyone can do it, we can do it”, says Malin Ripa.